Tuesday, May 28, 2013

Dagestan
is the only region in Russia where Salafi Muslim teaching operates officially—under
the guidance of the legal organization, the Association of Ahlu al Sunna. This
is not because the authorities have a different attitude to Salafis in
Dagestan, in comparison to the neighboring republics of the North Caucasus. Rather,
the Dagestani government’s tolerance to Salafis is explained by the fact that
it is particularly widespread in the republic (see EDM, May 9).
Correspondingly, a number of mosques located there represent this particular variety
of Islam. Well-known Salafi places of worship in Dagestan include the mosque on
Vengerskikh Boytsov Street and the mosque on Kotrova Street in Makhachkala, the
mosques in the town Vostochny in Khasavyurt’s suburbs, as well as mosques in
dozens of other towns and villages such as Gimry, Gubden, Karamakhi and
Kizilyurt.

However,
much media speculation has recently embroiled the An-Nadyriya mosque on Kotrova
Street in Makhachkala because of its alleged connection to Tamerlan Tsarnaev
(see, for example, world.time.com/2013/04/26/exclusive-time-speaks-to-dagestan-imam),
one of the accused Boston bombers, who was shot in a standoff with police on
April 19.

A
fairly modest mosque by Dagestani standards, the An-Nadyriya mosque on Kotrova
Street in Makhachkala, commonly referred to as the Kotrova mosque, became
famous because Tamerlan Tsarnaev, reportedly visited it during his stay in the
capital of Dagestan in 2012. The mosque is considered to belong to the Laks,
one of the major Dagestani ethnic groups. The house where the mosque is located
was once the home of Nadir-Shah Khachilaev, the leader of the Laks’ movement, and
was reconstructed by the Lak community for religious purposes. However, since
Islam does not recognize ethnic divisions, many who attend the mosque are non-Laks.
Because the mosque was built in Nadir-Shah Khachilaev’s home, it was named in
his honor, but after the Khachilaev brothers died, financing for the mosque
became scarce. People come from all over Makhachkala to the mosque for prayer, and
thousands pray outside its walls since it cannot hold all of the worshippers (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F5QcYpZKGs0).

This
mosque is officially considered to be Salafi in its religious orientation. Even
the Kotrova mosque’s website clearly conveys this message about its origin (http://salyaf.ru/).
Yet, the picture is more complicated than it looks. The mosque’s imam,
Gasan-Haji Gasaliev, also delivers Sufi sermons and plans to open a madrasah
named after Jamalladin Kazi-Kumukhski, who was one of the founders of the Sufi
tradition in Dagestan in the 19th century (http://assalam.ru/content/story/1473).
The imam himself denies any involvement of the mosque in the formation of
Tamerlan Tsarnaev’s ideas (http://inotv.rt.com/2013-04-27/Imam-mecheti-v-Mahachkale-K).
Indeed, it is hard to imagine that anyone would dramatically change his views
and outlook toward Islam after visiting this mosque, given that sermons there
are read in poor, strongly accented Russian. Furthermore, Dagestan’s Islamic
clergy do not recognize the mosque as a Salafi mosque
(www.ansar.ru/person/2010/04/12/2946).

Nevertheless,
government agents frequently raid the Kotrova mosque to detain parishioners,
which means that this place of worship is under constant surveillance by the authorities
(www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-05-01/boston-bomb-trail-leads-into-heart-of-putin-s-own-war-on-terror.html).

While
Tsarnaev was in Makhachkala, he may have witnessed conversions to Islam: one
such event took place at the Kotrova mosque on March 3, 2012 (www.youtube.com/watch?v=baK5Z-3qBAI&feature=youtu.be).
These rituals are normally very emotional. Tsarnaev may also have attended a
lecture delivered by one of the best known Salafi sheikhs in Dagestan, Abu Umar
Sasitlinski, in the same mosque on April 13, 2012. Without more detailed information
about Tamerlan’s life in Dagestan, it is impossible to know whether he attended
the mosque only on Fridays or visited it more frequently for special events.

In
light of this, can one say that Tamerlan became radicalized while in Dagestan
from January to July 2012? It is unlikely that he attended lectures and sermons
by well-known Salafist preachers in Dagestan. Nobody would have prevented him
from attending such events, so it was potentially possible, but there is no
evidence thus far confirming such a hypothesis. If Tamerlan developed his
radical ideas while in Dagestan, he likely would not have failed to mention
Dagestan and the North Caucasus while talking about Afghanistan and Iraq—war in
these two countries served as the Tsarnaev brothers’ justification for their
violent terrorist attack on the Boston Marathon. Thus, to Tamerlan, Dagestan
was something alien compared to what happened in Afghanistan and Iraq. This may
indicate that his instructors, whoever they were, put particular emphasis on
the latter two countries and not on his native North Caucasus. It could also suggest
that the North Caucasus is not given much prominence in the worldwide jihadist
movement because it is apparently considered to be a place of secondary
importance.

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